Big Marijuana lobby fights legalization efforts

Dispensary owners worry about ballot initiatives that could wreck their business model. | AP Photo

Richard Lee, a California-based activist and founder Oaksterdam University, the first marijuana “college,” compared marijuana legalization to another state-by-state advocacy fight: the push for same-sex marriage. There, the issue is pretty clear-cut, “You’re either for it or against it,” Lee said. “With cannabis legalization, it’s about how you do it.”

The split between the two sides of the pro-pot lobby is generally on the state level, where legislatures have been willing to take up the issue. Both sides are united in opposition to federal raids on medical marijuana dispensaries and support an overhaul of federal drug laws, but so far Congress has shown little interest.

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“At the federal level, there really is no divergence of interest at this point. We have a narrower focus” said Betty Aldworth, deputy director of the National Cannabis Industry Association.

The association and Americans for Safe Access are two major national trade groups that push for strict neutrality on state-level ballot efforts. Americans for Safe Access advocates specifically for medical cannabis, while NCIA represents all marijuana retailers — recreational and medical.

In Washington state, pot dispensary operators said the new legalization law would put them out of business. Medical marijuana activists also were upset about a standard for driving under the influence that was included in the 2012 ballot initiative. It proposed that police could jail medical marijuana users even if they weren’t high.

In Washington, Steve Sarich, executive director of the Cannabis Action Coalition, ran a vocal campaign against the ballot measure. Among his concerns: provisions in the law that allow cities to impose restrictive zoning codes on marijuana retailers, and the liquor control board’s lack of experience regulating marijuana.

The initiative — called I-502 — was “designed to pass,” he said. “It was never designed to be implemented. I’m willing to bet you any amount of money you like that it won’t be implemented.”

In Colorado, opposition from the industry to the 2012 ballot measure was muted — but pot dispensaries won an important concession: the exclusive right to convert into recreational shops before anyone else can apply for a license.

And even there, Colorado dispensary owners weren’t a major part of the pro-legalization coalition. It took one activist — Brian Vicente of Sensible Colorado — 18 months of outreach to convince owners that the new law wouldn’t hurt their bottom line, he told POLITICO.

“Their concerns are oftentimes valid,” said Mason Tvert, of the Marijuana Policy Project of Denver who also helped run the pro-legalization campaign in 2012. “We’re taking about people who have risked their freedom and liberty and faced the threat of criminal penalties to open these businesses to meet the needs of the public.”